I liked what Charlie Rangel said on Washington Journal this morning

[BurtWorm]

about the process being good for the Democratic Party and the country. I don't know if it's true, but I liked it. It made me feel less fearful of the consequences of the intraparty fight at least for a minute. I liked best his characterization of the difference between lock-step Republicans and scrappy Democrats (would that it were true, when scrapping with Republicans rather than Democrats!). "We're interesting people," he told CSPAN's Greta Woderle in his edgily cheerful manner.

:patriot:

[H2O Man]

1. I like Rangel.

A friend of mine used to work for him, and I have a high opinion of him.

As Will Pitt noted in an essay yesterday, the democratic party has had numerous battles for leadership of the party over recent decades. When RFK ran his brother's 1960 campaign, some of the party leadership resented him. But the torch was passed to a new generation.

In 1976, Hamilton Jordan came up with a plan to make a marginal politician president. The established leadership resented them.

Bill Clinton represented another change. Today, Barack Obama is challenging the Clinton machine.

That's good for our party in many ways. If we contrast it to the republicans in the same period, we see that Goldwater tried to take their party in a conservative direction, and failed. But the conservatives regrouped, and became part of the "old school" Nixon administration. By 1980, they took over the republican party, and they remain entrenched.

[BurtWorm]

2. He's my Representative, I'm very pleased to say.

I am always torn between wanting to laugh and wanting to gag when I hear Republicans talk about how avant-garde conservatism is and how Democrats and lefties "don't get it." It was au courant in 1980, but it has clearly just about run its course. There should be no question about that from anyone who can look objectively at what a wreck the right has wrought during their reign. And a major part of its problem is it's a monolithic idea completely incapable of adapting to change.

This is why the left will always be the party of progress. Hopefully the Dems will get smart enough to hitch their wagon to the left and keep it hitched until the country is out of the ditch, at least.